(One) Ben Reilly was still on the floor, trying to see if there was anything left in Peter's clothes. Standing over him were Mary Jane Watson and John Jameson. But then he realized something. "Peter just disintegrated. As if he was the clone… Then he was the clone. All this time I thought I was the clone when I was actually the real Peter Parker."
Apotheosis
(Two) "That doesn't make any sense. Haven't you died multiple…" Mary Jane interrupted. But just then she abruptly collapsed.
"She's fainted," John Jameson declared. He quickly put her on a couch. "The shock of seeing the love of her life dissolve into nothingness was too much for her."
"I'm still trying to get my mind around this…" Ben responded.
"I do remember someone in SHIELD telling me that you had died and been resurrected in multiple clone forms by Warren. So how could you not be the clone?"
"False memories somehow?"
"Or maybe the real Peter Parker is somewhere else. Or is already dead."
"Excuse me," interrupted Reed Richards calling on what had been Peter's phone. "I really do need some update on what is going on."
"Right," Ben replied. Just then Mary Jane started returning to consciousness. "OK, John you're going to take MJ back to her Aunt Anna. Hold on, let me think…"
John Jameson got Mary Jane to her feet and the two headed to the door. Just then Ben yelled. "Eureka!"
(Three) "I'm sorry," Richards on the phone said. "Could you clarify that?"
"Look, I've been dealing with a lot of inconvenient clues and not getting anywhere for the past two days. But just then something came to me." Ben shut the door as the two visitors left.
"And I need to know what that is."
"Right now, it's just an intuition. And I can't put it into effect until tomorrow. Look, the government and everyone is looking for Warren. I think he's in Staten Island. If they find him, all power to them. But I think I know the one way to find him, and only I can do it. You have to trust me."
"Trust you? Right now, I don't know whom I'm really talking to."
Ben hung up and paced around Peter's apartment thinking about his next move. Across the city people were worrying about the New Year. Many were unnerved about the change in the government later that month. Even people indifferent to news were horrified about the story of the terrorist conspiracy that caused the police to stop New Years Eve's celebration. They would have been even more terrified had they realized this was just a cover story to hide an epidemic that could be infinitely more dangerous than any terrorist atrocity.
And as the ball began to drop in other cities in the Atlantic Paul Raban was in his apartment on the phone talking to his cousin Patricia, also his closest living relative. "So, as you can see, it's been a very strange year. Happy New Year! He just hung up when he found himself wracked with a strange indescribable energy. He found himself shouting words in a language he couldn't understand and couldn't recognize. He collapsed to the floor. When he opened his eyes, he realized something. "I have to save him!"
(Four) It was late New Year's Day morning and Wilson Fisk was in his office, getting impatient. "What is keeping that woman?"
"Well, it is New Year's Day, sir," a minion responded. That minion was waiting in a car examining an apartment building about twenty feet away.
"Time is of the essence," the Kingpin responded ungraciously. But just then the door to the apartment building opened and a young woman of American Indian descent walked out, dressed in a jacket and other clothing one might wear on when the temperature was a few degrees above freezing, as indeed it was that day. That woman was Sara Wolfe, longtime friend and accountant of Dr. Strange.
"Hold on sir, she's coming out."
As Sara walked down the street an Asian American woman dressed in a Salvation Army costume approached her, followed a few feet behind by a man who appeared to be a Hasidic Jew. As Sarah passed them, they abruptly grabbed her. A black van with few distinguishing marks on it quickly drove by and the two agents quickly pushed Sarah inside.
"We've got her. Now what?"
"You did record this?"
"Yes."
"Well then in ten minutes you are going to download what you've recorded on to one of the local news stations. If people aren't talking about this in three hours, I will be most upset indeed."
"How does this help our kidnapping?"
"Was I not clear about this? Not a hair on Ms. Wolfe's head is to be harmed. She is to be treated with every courtesy while she is our guest."
(Five) Peter Parker was wondering where he was. Or indeed if he was anywhere at all. He couldn't see anything. He couldn't feel anything. "Where the hell am I?" he thought.
"Ah. Hell could be exactly where I am. Because the last thing I remember is that I was disintegrating just like Kaine and that clone of Ned Leeds.
"I could be dead. And I didn't tell Mary Jane I loved her.
"But I can't disintegrate because I'm not a clone. Seward Trainer said I was a clone years ago, but that was all just a trick by Norman Osborn. Unless he was right all this time.
"Or what if I only think I'm Peter Parker. I may just be a clone with all his memories, and I don't even know when I replaced the real Peter.
"Wait, if clones are vector for the virus, then I could have been replaced for Aunt May's funeral. That's when I would have met the largest number of people.
"Hold on. Let me think. Surely there's some way to distinguish being a clone and the real me. Just as there's some way to distinguish whether I'm dead."
Hello Peter
"Who are you?"
Not just yet. Or maybe never. What do you know of Christian heresies?
"That's an odd question to ask… Wait, I remember that Norman Cohn book, The Pursuit of the Millennium."
Do you remember Mortalism? It's the heresy that souls don't go to heaven and hell but stay asleep until the Final Judgement. And during the Reign of Terror, Saint Just decreed that all cemeteries would carry the motto "Death is an eternal sleep." And if to sleep, perchance to dream?
"What's going on?"
Sleep Peter Parker. You can hardly do anything else.
(Six) Sometime that afternoon Ben Reilly was swinging into an alleyway on Staten Island. He quickly changed into his street clothes. "It's a pretty big risk, and I suppose I should have told Reed Richards everything I know. But this may be the risk that pays off."
He walked across the street and approached a café that was open just that afternoon. Gingerly he opened the door and entered. "Well, my spider-sense isn't tingling. That's a good sign, except it could just mean I'm no closer to Warren then I was yesterday and the day before."
He looked around the café, but did not see who he was looking for. A waitress, her feelings divided between working on New Year's Day and needing to pay the rent, approached Ben. "Can I help you?"
Ben took a closer look and realized there was a nook of the café just outside his field of vision. "Just a moment," he responded. He walked towards the nook. There he saw sitting at a table a blonde woman his age with long straight hair, wearing a sensible fall jacket.
There was another chair at the table. Ben took it and sat down. "Hello, Gwen."
(Seven) Betty Brant was in a hospital gown sitting on the edge of her bed. "I feel awful."
"But you're feeling better than you were yesterday?" asked an unseen voice. The voice belonged to one of the medical specialists, who could not actually enter Betty's room because of her especially dangerous disease.
"Yesterday, I was sick as a dog. I suppose I feel better now."
"There are two green pills that serve as aspirin and two purple pills that serve as anti-nausea medication. Taken them to mitigate your condition."
Betty did so. "I only feel like I'm on the verge of throwing up as opposed to actually doing so…"
"Ms. Brant, we need your full attention for what we need to tell you. Are you coherent and conscious?"
"Ready as I'll ever be."
"First, the man claiming to be your husband is dead. He died yesterday and was in fact a clone. The cellular disintegration that is distinct but somehow complementary to the virus you suffer from caused him to dissolve into dust. We believe he was in contact with a man named Miles Warren."
"The only Miles Warren I know has been dead for years. Except I've heard about people taking his place."
She paused. "What's the second thing?"
(Eight) "This." And on the wall a very large screen appeared. On it appeared Betty's baby son Winston, alone and helpless, surrounded and almost smothered in a large tangle of tubes and wires. "Your son is just about to die."
"Winston!"
"Every vital organ is on the verge of failure. More accurately, on the verge of dissolution."
"There must be something you can do! Let me think. Cryogenics!?"
"Those don't really work. And even if they did work, your son would have died between disconnecting him from those tubes and placing him in the capsule."
Just then Winston began to howl. Not very loudly, since there was a tube down his throat.
"Winston, your mother is right here! Your mother is right here!"
"Actually Miss Brant, the cellular disintegration has already affected his ears. He hasn't been able to hear a thing for the past two days."
"Can he see me?"
(Nine) "Probably not. We were going to test that yesterday, but then the Center for Disease Control insisted that we do a battery of much more important ones."
"Winston…" One side of the screen showed a series of vital signs indicators. Betty was too distraught to notice that one after the other they were all failing.
"Your son is dead." Winston's unstaring eyes were still open. But then his body shook a little and started to dissolve. In less than half a minute there was nothing of him but a small pile of dust. The assorted tubes and wires automatically retracted.
"Could I have an urn with my son's ashes?"
"If you survive the virus we could give you an empty urn. Although to be frank it's not likely you will survive the week. But we can't give you any of your son's remains for two reasons. First, we don't fully understand the cellular disintegration that killed him, so we don't know if it's safe for anyone exposed to him. Second, we do know that clones are a key vector of the virus, and we need every scrap of cloned material for testing. I doubt they'll be anything left by the time we're finished."
(Ten) Meanwhile Mary Jane was taking a New Year's Day walk with her aunt. "You seem better today, Aunt Anna."
"It's very nice, except one expects more snow this time of year."
Mary Jane took care to avoid other people. "Is something wrong Mary Jane?"
"It occurs to me that we might have to stay inside for the next few days."
"I remember that it's going to get much colder in a few days."
"It could be something worse than that."
"Oh, I hope it's not that dreadful COVID again."
Just then Mary Jane heard a familiar voice. "Hello, Mary Jane."
"Quentin Beck," Mary Jane realized. She grabbed her aunt's wrist tightly. "What do you want?"
"Some associates of mine think they can help your aunt. They certainly want to make the effort."
"Go away." But all this time a fog had enveloped the two women. And when it dissipated there was nobody there.
(Eleven) "It's been a long time," Ben said.
"You must be Ben," Gwen responded.
"I actually think Peter would be a better name."
"If you are Peter, the real Peter, you should do something about your hair. Blonde hair simply doesn't work on you." She laughed softly.
Ben took a closer look at Gwen, noticing she was still wearing gloves. "Let's get started. You're the clone of Gwen Stacy whom the Jackal created shortly after the real Gwen Stacy was murdered. Peter…I soon realized that you were a clone, and after we realized that the Jackal was actually Pr. Miles Warren you walked away. Later, to complicate things even further the High Evolutionary claimed you weren't a clone, but someone else named Joyce Delaney who had been genetically transformed into a replica of Gwen. But that was an overly complicated lie. You married a clone of Warren, but when he dissolved again you helped us to fight the real Jackal.
"And then you left us all again, going to London. Except there you were murdered by yet another clone of Gwen Stacy, only for that clone to die shortly thereafter. Which begs the question of who you are.
"I think Warren never got over his unhealthy obsession with the real Gwen which really went out of control when she was murdered. Recently, he created another clone of her, and that clone is you."
Just then the waitress who met Ben earlier came by. "I'll have some Earl Grey tea. And Peter will have some club soda," Gwen said.
(Twelve) "That's an interesting argument, Peter. But I don't think you believe it."
"And why do you say that?"
"For a start, look at me. If I was a new clone of Gwen, wouldn't it be reasonable for Miles to develop my body up to the age Gwen died? But I'm clearly older than that. In fact, I'm clearly the same age 'Joyce Delaney' would be if she were still alive. And the simplest explanation for that is that I am 'Joyce Delaney.' I am the original Gwen clone and have been since your first saw me."
"So how did you survive your murder?"
"Very simple. Warren knew about Abby-L and managed to create yet another Gwen clone for her to kill, while I was safe with him. When Abby-L appeared, nobody knew that neither you nor Warren were still alive.
"But here's another thing. That you realized today I was in Staten Island is one thing. But why would you think I was alive at all? There was no reason to think that I was with Warren during the Clone Conspiracy. Kaine didn't know I existed, so there was nothing in what he had left that would lead you to me."
Just then the waitress came by with their drinks. Gwen took a sip of her tea. "Here's what I think. You started looking for me because you wanted to find me."
(Thirteen) Ben took a nervous sip of his club soda. "And why would I want to do that?"
"For the same reason I agreed to meet with you."
There was a momentary silence. Then Ben spoke up. "You're thinking I'm a clone. And that because I'm a clone I still have the basic feelings I did from the time I was cloned, only updated with a few memories. Therefore, I'm still mourning for you, I mean the real Gwen, while the real Peter has moved on with his life.
"But the 'real' Peter has disintegrated. Which means I'm the real Peter. Somewhere along the line our memories have been confused and switched."
Gwen shook her head. "Peter, you're not Peter. And you are a clone. And you're here because you still love me. Which you would if you were a clone and not Peter."
Ben grimaced awkwardly and gulped down most of his Club Soda as Gwen continued. "You're looking for the magic solution that makes sense of all your life. But the only way to get that is to listen to what Miles will tell you."
Ben finished his club soda and stared directly at Gwen. "Why are you working with him? The last time the Jackal appeared his plan was for universal genocide."
Gwen did not respond directly to Ben's indignation. "Peter, you've forgotten that neither me nor Miles alert your spider sense." She removed her left glove, revealing a wedding band on her ring finger.
And then Ben's head fell on the table, unconscious from the drugged club soda.
(Fourteen) Mary Jane and her aunt found themselves at Dr. Octopus' hideout. With Mysterio behind the two, and with Sandman and Electro working on other tasks, Dr. Octopus approached the couple. "Great, kidnapped again," Mary Jane muttered. "I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have this happen to me yet again."
"Excuse me, Ms. Watson. But I need to talk to your aunt." He directed Anna to a chair and had her sit down. "Hello, Anna. Do you remember me?"
"I'm not sure… Something about you… I can't quite recall…"
"But of course you do remember May Parker."
"Yes, and now that you mention her… It is becoming… a bit clearer?" Dr. Octopus turned to Mary Jane. "As you saw on live television, Miss Watson, the clones of the Jackal are alarmingly unstable. And since I and several of my colleagues are currently living in cloned bodies that makes for a very uncomfortable situation."
"And what does that have to do with the two of us?"
"As it happens, the Sinister Six has recruited two leading scientists to help our situation." And with that Morbius and the Lizard entered the room.
"Those two lunatics? Yeah, I can't imagine anything that could possibly go wrong with them."
"Regardless of your skepticism, Miss Watson, Morbius believes he has a regenerative serum that could help stabilize our situation. He originally devised it to work on Alzheimer's patients, but didn't follow through on it because it did not assist his primary goal of curing his vampirism."
(Fifteen) Morbius spoke up. "But now all we need is someone suffering from Alzheimer's. And your aunt is the perfect patient."
"You're insane! You can't honestly think I'll let you within the same city as my aunt!"
"I'm really feeling very sane today. I haven't been this well in months!"
"You can feel very sane in some other city!"
Sandman spoke up. "Now I know you're alarmed. But Otto tells me that Morbius' serum has the possibility of completing curing your aunt."
"Leaving aside the fact that the doctor involved is a blood-drinking sociopath—and there is, in fact, no good reason to leave that aside—I'm not going to have my aunt serve as a guinea pig in anybody's experiment!
"And there's another thing! I don't know if you've heard about it, but the Big Apple is just a few days from an outbreak of some clone virus that is going to make Ebola look like the common cold. Do any of you have any clever idea how to stop that?"
"We have heard of the disssease," hissed the Lizard.
"And?"
"I am studying it."
"Look," interjected Dr. Octopus. "I don't want to hurt you or your aunt." He paused. "So don't make me."
Mary Jane reluctantly agreed to sit down, while Dr. Octopus and Morbius prepared Anna for some tests. She drummed her fingers as Electro approached her awkwardly.
"Umm… I hope you like pizza?"
(Sixteen) Peter still couldn't feel or see anything. "Am I awake? Or am I even alive?"
Nothing happened. "Great. Now I'm remembering all the stories of people who are trapped and about to die, or people who did in fact die and faced all kinds of weird crap as they face whatever they're going to face."
Hello Peter
"It's you again. What's going on?"
Understand Peter. The first rule of life, the first rule of the universe, is duty.
Now more than ever that is the rule you must bind yourself with Peter. But it's not enough for you to know the rule. You need to believe the rule, feel the rule, become the rule.
"I don't understand. There's some kind of epidemic. Everybody I know and love is in danger."
Yes Peter. They are. And you are the only person who can help them. But you have to listen very carefully. And in the bottom left hand corner Peter could somehow sense light coming in.
(Seventeen) The light slowly increased. You will need every strength of your soul to do what is next. You have to obey without question.
'What do you mean by obey? There's nothing I can do."
That's not true Peter. There's everything you can do. The light was still increasing.
And then all around Peter found, well, not himself, but somehow his consciousness was in a world of white. See the center Peter? In there is an infinitesimal of pure light. You must approach it.
"Approach it? I think I've seen this movie and read this story before. This is where I enter the afterlife."
No Peter. Although Peter was somehow moving to the center. You can do everything that is needed to stop the virus. For the virus will ravage and destroy not merely the city, but the whole planet.
And now Peter found "himself" on the threshold of the center. All this time you've been concerned about not doing enough, concerned about doing the same things over and over again, of being in a permanent rut.
You must purge yourself of those doubts, everything that hinders you, everything that delays your and traps you in permanent adolescence. Instead of thinking you will know and knowing you will act and save everyone. And now Peter crossed the threshold and found himself in pure light.
And once in the light he found himself wrapped in a world of spectra, not all of them the standard light spectra, but others in a strange, indescribable way. Yes Peter, realize this moment, taste this moment, accept this moment and in accepting this moment become infinitely stronger!
Yes, Peter, you are nearly there! In a few instants your soul will be purged, and a new existence will begin!
"Wow, somehow this is really happening," Peter thought. But just then an all too familiar sensation occurred: "Hold on, my spider-sense?"
(Eighteen) Somewhere in a laboratory a somewhat squat and pudgy balding man in his early fifties was working at some audio controls when a short sharp alarm briefly sounded. "What was that?" asked his colleague, racing in from another room. The man was clean-shaven, of average height and weight and in his mid-forties.
"Everything should be fine."
"You idiot, what are you trying to do?"
"Under the special situation he is in, I've been trying to get Parker to obey me."
"That is not what I asked you to do. I just needed you to keep him calm while I worked on the Warren virus."
"The apotheosis program will work perfectly. It will make him completely obedient to our goals."
"That's a hypothetical program only. And it's not meant for major super-heroes like Parker."
"You are interrupting me at a vital point of the proceedings."
"Oh for the love of God, Kaas. You probably don't even know what that alarm was!"
Somehow Peter, still somehow conscious in the world of unthinkable colors was somehow beginning to hear the two men's conversations. "You're too close to me!" Kaas complained. "Now he can hear our every world."
His colleague could barely control his indignation. "Kaas, you're trying to make Parker think he is dead. But that alarm shows that his spider-sense is working.
"And this is the key point. His soul doesn't have a spider-sense, his body does. Which means he'll realize he's still alive!"
Kaas' colleague rudely pushed himself aside. "Parker, listen to me carefully. You're in a sensory deprivation chamber. I am going to release you momentarily so don't try to break it open."
(Nineteen) And to his considerable surprise, Peter found he was in such a chamber, which had now opened. He gasped loudly which the water he had been floating in drained away.
Kaas' colleague took charge. "Listen to me carefully Parker. First off, you're still disoriented from being in the chamber. I promise it will be better if you stay calm and listen to me.
"Second you are completely naked. In a few minutes I will give you some clothes, but if you try to leave it's still New Year's Day. In fact, you have been in the chamber for more than 24 hours. You don't know where you are in New York but running around in freezing weather is a good way to get pneumonia. Now do you understand me?"
Peter shivered. "Sort of. I thought I had died."
"That's understandable. Actually, I teleported you from your apartment to that sensory chamber."
"Why did you do that?"
"Look at that screen above my head. It provides video feed of the lab in the next room where I was just working. See something familiar?"
Peter did. "That's the viral cannister the clone of Ned Leeds mentioned that he got from Warren."
"Correct. Kaas, if you could adjust the camera slightly." Kaas did so and Peter saw a laptop. "Just before we teleported you, Reed Richards mentioned that the Leeds virus and Leeds' computer program were missing. They weren't missing: I teleported them here to this lab just before I teleported you."
(Twenty) "Why did you do that?"
"Because while Reed Richards is undoubtedly the greatest scientist of our time, he is not an expert in genetics the way I am. I needed the virus, and I needed the computer program, and I could work on them far faster than Richards and the people he had working with him."
"But why did you kidnap me? Why did you make people think I was disintegrating? And why keep me in a sensory deprivation chamber for a whole day?"
"To answer your questions in reverse order, you were in the chamber because I was busy working on the virus and the computer program. I arranged for people to think you were dissolving because if I simply teleported you away people would realize I had done that and would track me down and interrupt me. And I had to kidnap you because Miles Warren had already made one effort to kill you and I couldn't risk having him kill you while I examining the virus."
Peter said nothing. Instead, he glowered at his kidnapper. Who in turn turned to Kaas. "I think you should help arrange a meal for our guest."
"I am not your guest," Peter interrupted testily, though Kaas still got up to fix some food.
"I understand," replied his kidnapper. "Hold on for a moment." He went to what appeared to be a filing cabinet and opened a drawer. "I took the liberty of teleporting these as well." He tossed Peter his costume, some underwear and his web-shooters with extra paraphernalia. He approached Peter in the chamber. "I imagine this will also be useful." And he handed Peter a firearm.
Peter looked at it and put it aside. "Who the hell are you?"
"My name is Zuccotti. Get dressed, I have much to tell you."
(Twenty-One) At roughly the same time Dr. Strange was entering the living quarters of Wilson Fisk. "May I take your coat?" asked the Kingpin's attractive female valet, whose traditional costume did not include any pants.
"No," said Dr. Strange. Apparently dressed in normal clothes, he ignored the valet and unsmilingly noticed the Kingpin approach him.
"Ah, Dr. Strange, so good of you to accept my invitation."
"It's hardly an invitation."
"Now, now. If you just follow me into this room everything should be made clear."
The two entered Fisk's study. Fisk closed the door behind him. "Would you like a drink, Stephen."
"No. I want to know what you have done with my friend."
"Your friend? I just thought she was your accountant."
"Fisk, I have no reason to be patient with someone who kidnapped her…"
"Kidnapped her? I think you are under a misapprehension." He flicked a switch and a videoscreen appeared. Dr. Strange saw Sara Wolfe leaving a fashionable restaurant near a subway entrance, while one of Fisk's hoodlums profusely apologized and offered her a large sum of cash. "See, just an unfortunate misunderstanding, for which we have generously compensated Ms. Wolfe for her time."
"If that's the case, I will leave."
"Just a moment."
(Twenty-two) The Kingpin hit another switch and now a giant videoscreen covered one of the study's walls. A couple of dozen screens appeared showing people of all walks of life doing all sorts of ordinary New York things. "It occurs to me, my good Doctor, that the most striking things could happen to all these people. A bomb could go off in that restaurant there. Gunmen could randomly shoot into that coffee shop. A fire could break out in that dance club, condemning dozens of people to certain death. So much could go horribly wrong. And you do not know the moment, the code word, the signal that starts everything.
"My son is on the brink of death. No human medicine can save him. But whatever mortal perils threaten my son, your magical skills can save his life. And I most certainly assure you, they will."
